The insurance company industry and the other special groups have spent decades trying to mislead the public into believing that there are too many lawsuits and that all lawsuits are frivolous. In reality, for an attorney like myself and this firm to pursue a personal injury case involves putting a significant amount of time and money into the case. Very few attorneys in general will risk their own money pursuing a case that does not have any merit. The biggest misconception is that people who bring lawsuits are just trying to get rich quick or capitalize on something when they are just trying to hold the party responsible for causing an injury accountable for that injury.
Top Misconceptions About The Personal Injury Recovery Process
Some people believe that the mere fact that they have suffered an injury by itself means that a defendant will pay the money or make a quick settlement. In order to recover money for someone, we need to prove that the injury was the result of someone’s negligence or wrongdoing. We also need medical evidence to corroborate that the injury is as serious as we claim that it is. Another misconception is that because your client may know someone either personally or through a story in the press who got a large recovery in some other case that they should get a very large recovery as well when every case really depends on its own facts. A lot of times the facts or the reasons why any particular case resulted in a specific amount of money, whether it is a verdict or a settlement, may be very different from a particular client’s case but those facts are not usually reported.
The Process Of Documenting Events In A Journal After An Accident
We do recommend it and it is mainly because as long as you are telling the truth, having any process that will help you and help your recollection as time goes by and the case proceeds is a good thing. Memories can fade and timelines can get fuzzy and things can get confused with the passage of time. But if you have a record of events from the time they happened, it makes it a lot easier when it comes to that discovery phase of a lawsuit and you have to answer questions about them. A journal or a list of the ways in which an injury affects someone in everyday life can also be critical to establishing the full extent of the damages.
Things as potentially obvious as being unable to open a jar, clean or dress yourself, pick up your kids or grandkids and so forth are just the sort of things that can make an injury real for a jury or for an insurance adjuster on the other side. But they are the sort of things that do not show up in the medical records or any other chart. So if an injured person cannot provide that information, really no one else can. Especially when a primary injury is pain, pain is not something that will show up on an x-ray or a blood test. The way we prove pain is to talk about and demonstrate the real tangible ways that pain affects the person’s everyday life, and that is something that the jury, judge, or the insurance adjuster can relate to.
Unintentional Mistakes That Are Detrimental To A Personal Injury Claim
Obviously exaggerating the extent of their injuries or the extent that they are affected, thinking it will help the case, will hurt someone’s credibility. Claiming they cannot do this or that while they or their friends are posting photos on social media of them doing those things or being caught by surveillance by the defendants doing those things can destroy a case. On the other hand, failing to keep up with their doctor’s appointments, being non-compliant with the doctor’s recommendations for treatment and therapy or other things that can hurt our ability to establish damages for a client.
For more information on Misconceptions About Personal Injury Attorneys And Claims, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (215) 569-1212 today.
